Radical and Unpleasant
by ibshafer
Summary: What if we were all wrong...


**Story: **Radical and Unpleasant  
**Fandom: **Glee  
**Author:** ibshafer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Kurt, Karofsky

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.  
**Summary:** _What if we were all wrong?_  
**Warnings:** spoilers for NVK; the rest, AU…  
**A/N:** I do NOT think this is true, really I don't, but sometimes I see Davey…being _Davey_ and I wonder, what if that's who he really _is?_

Radical and Unpleasant

_- ibshafer_

It was something that none of them, least of all Kurt, had ever considered before and it might have actually been funny, this radical, unpleasant thought, if he didn't currently have two flavors of extra large Slushie staining his couture and sliding down the inside of his dove gray velvet shirt…

He was as familiar with the cold and sticky feeling, as was he of their source; that ruddy-faced, sneering jerk, _Dave Karofsky._

He'd known Karofsky as both the homophobic bully who had terrorized him and as the tormented and closeted gay teen, struggling with his emerging sexual identity, who had been driven, in desperation, to kiss him.

So Karofsky's latest incarnation had rather taken Kurt by surprise…

Carole had asked Kurt to deliver a message to Finn and not finding his step in the locker room, he'd headed out to the field where practice was just breaking up.

That's where he'd seen him. Or rather, where he'd seen _them_.

Bounding into the stands, Karofsky had grabbed the Slushie being held out to him, and, grinning, had bent to plant a kiss on the bearer's lips.

And the bearer was a _guy_.

That Karofsky would be kissing a guy was no big surprise – he _was_ gay, after all, but that he'd be doing it out in the open like that, while his teammates were returning to the locker room… _Not a care in the world._

Kurt couldn't help himself; oh, he gamely tried, but he just didn't bite his tongue in time.

"So, what, you're _Out_ now?" He squinted up into he stands at the big jock and his apparent boyfriend, a tall pale boy Kurt seemed to remember was abasketball player. "_That_ was quick."

Karofsky, an arm around the other boy, leaned forward, a scowl clouding his previously smiling face. "What? You got a _problem_ with that or something?"

There was a very familiar tone of _menace_ in the big jock's voice and Kurt had a split second reality adjustment: he's always assumed that Karofsky's belligerence was a product of his struggle and that once he'd come to terms with his sexuality, he'd be a much nicer person.

The big ape, and his equally tall paramour, were rising from the bleachers, their anger apparent, and as Kurt saw both boys move their partially consumed Slushies into firing position, he had a moment's epiphanous realization:

Dave Karofsky may have been, in the past, struggling with his homosexuality, but that had nothing to do with the Slushies and the locker slams.

No, it would seem Kurt had been way too charitable to the big, dumb jock.

As the raspberry (blue) and the cherry (red) Slushies made the acquaintance of his $68 Marc Jacobs silk boxers (charcoal grey), Kurt had _one true moment of clarity_.

Dave Karofsky hadn't been a tormented, closeted gay teen driven to bullying as he struggled with the inescapable truth of who he was. (Though, in truth, he had been _both_ those things.)

No…what Dave Karofsky _was_ was…_an asshole_.

No explanation needed, no justification required. No nod to their apparent solidarity as Out and proud gay teens; _Dave didn't care._

Kurt had read him totally wrong.

All along, Karofsky was just being true to his nature.

He _was_ a loud-mouthed bully.

He _was_ a physically abusive jerk.

He was, very clearly, _an asshole…_

As Kurt marveled at just how the disgusting frozen drink could retain its below-freezing temperature for as long as it did – he was starting to feel the first icy drips in his socks – Karofsky and his boyfriend jumped down from the stands, bumping Kurt as they stomped by.

"See ya at the tea party, twinkie!" Karofsky sneered and the other boy joined in, both of them laughing as they disappeared into the locker room.

_Huh._

"Well, what do you know," Kurt mumbled aloud to no one in particular. "It really _does_ take all kinds…"

3


End file.
